Pendant of Power [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 4]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026AMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the fourth and final week of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Signature Objects,” where the editors were given a week to create a video showcasing an important object (specifically an object, not a character) and the significance to the character(s) that used it.

I was really very short on editing time during this week, dealing with several real-life priorities, so this one felt more thrown-together than the other weeks in the end.

I didn’t have time to ponder alternate ideas, so I had to run with the first thought I had, which was the pendant from Laputa: Castle in the Sky. My usual crutch of instrumental production music got used again, but with the time crunch, it didn’t annoy me quite as much this week.

One other editor said during the reveal stream that they had considered the same object for their video, but they thankfully had gone with a different idea, so we didn’t end up clashing. In the end, not a great video, but given the time constraints, not a bad one, either.

Video – Laputa: Castle In the Sky
Audio – Epic Score – Destiny and Honor
Completed August 2025

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link

The Pageantry of Ritual [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 3]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026LAMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the third week of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Guilds of Ravnica,” where editors were given a week to create a video representing one of the ten Ravnica guilds from the Magic: The Gathering game setting.

I had a really hard time coming up with an idea for this one, as nothing I came up with seemed to fit any of the descriptions of the Guilds. Not being familiar with any of the MTG lore (I had stopped playing the game more than 20 years earlier, between the Tempest and Urza blocks) also didn’t help me.
I eventually settled on using the recently-released movie Conclave, which I’d enjoyed (though I think the book was better), and waffled between presenting the church as Orzhov or Azorius before landing on Orzhov. For the audio, I annoyed myself by going back to my old standby for short timeframe videos of instrumental production music and Two Steps From Hell, which still managed to work in creating a fairly suspenseful thriller-style video.

Not my most successful week, but I still like the resulting video.

Video – Conclave
Audio – Two Steps From Hell – Rapid Eye Movement
Completed July 2025

YouTube Link

What Might Have Been [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 2]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026AMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for week two of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Flip the Script,” where editors were given a week to create a video that misleads the viewer about the source material.

I was actively watching My Dress-Up Darling at the time, and just recently finished the arc with Shinju wanting to cosplay. So that gave me the idea of making Marin the “losing” girl in the story and setting up a fake Gojo/Shinju pairing. I was reluctant to use the reprise of “I’m Not That Girl” from Wicked, since I’d used the original version for a Toradora video several years before (for an actual “losing” girl character in Ami), but the theming and song length worked out too well not to go with it.

I’ll admit, I was cackling evilly at several points during the making of this one, and several people reacted with “you made Marin cry!” sorts of comments during the reveal stream, which greatly amused me.

Video – My Dress-Up Darling
Audio – Kristin Chenoweth – I’m Not That Girl (reprise) [from Wicked]
Completed July 2025

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Inspector Basil [Shabu Showdown 2025 Week 1]

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026FMV, Project Editor, Videos

The theme for the first week of Shabu Showdown 2025 was “Enneagrams,” where the participants were given one week to create a video that was a character profile showcasing one of the nine enneagram personality types.

I didn’t have a solid idea at first, but I knew I wanted to use a short song because of the condensed timeframe. Going through my collection of music, I pulled out a few possibilities, but then stumbled across the Inspector Gadget opening theme. I had had a conversation with someone recently where The Great Mouse Detective had come up, so the immediate association between Basil and Type 5 – Investigator clicked in my head.

I ended up tracking down an instrumental version of the theme because the lyrics felt a bit too literal for the setting, and I think that was the right choice.

It got a good reaction in the reveal stream, and several compliments after the week ended.

Video – The Great Mouse Detective
Audio – Shuki Levy – Inspector Gadget Theme (Instrumental)
Completed July 2025

YouTube Link

Stage Presence

LantisEscudoMarch 17, 2026FMV, Videos

This one was directly inspired by SilkAMV’s excellent video BLOOD 4 THE BLOOD GOD in AWA’s Accolades contest in late 2024. I had vaguely had an idea in the back of my mind about using various 80’s animated movies set to “Rock and Roll Fantasy” for a couple years, but hadn’t actually made any concrete plans for it. Silk’s use of a music-heavy movie I’d never heard of before, combined with the launch of Retro Matsuri, a new retro-focused event with an all-retro-animated-sources content rule, changed that.

One difficulty I ran into is that while I’d seen clips of most of the movies I used, I hadn’t actually watched any of them all the way through, so how much footage from each was actually usable was a surprise. I’m still amazed at how little musical footage was actually in a movie called “Heavy Metal,” and I ended up only using some background/scenery shots from Cats Don’t Dance because of the clash in art and stage animation styles.

I ended up cutting the song down heavily, which worked out pretty well, in my opinion (most of the cut bits were repeats and loops), and the final result came together pretty decently.

It did make the finals at Retro Matsuri, but didn’t win its category.

Video – American Pop, Cats Don’t Dance, A Goofy Movie, Heavy Metal, Rock-a-Doodle, Rock & Rule, Thumbelina
Audio – Bad Company – Rock and Roll Fantasy
Completed June 2025

YouTube Link

Backstop [Class Warfare: Shielder]

LantisEscudoJune 22, 2025AMV, Iron Chef, Videos

After finishing my Assassin video for the Class Warfare event, I had about a day before the deadline, and I knew that there weren’t a lot of Shielder entries yet at that point. I’d considered a sports-themed video for my main idea, but couldn’t find any song that seemed to fit. Searching around on a whim after submitting the Assassin video, I stumbled across “Goalie Goalie” from the 2018 FIFA World Cup and thought I could throw together a garbage video very quickly, just for a laugh.

I think it may have taken longer to rip the BluRays of Pride of Orange than I spent actually editing the video, which was just every shot I could find of a goalie character in the first five episodes slapped together in a ten-second video.

It got a few laughs in the streams, which is all I can ask for out of such a zero-effort project.

Anime – Pride of Orange
Audio – Arash Nyusha Pitbull Blanco – Goalie Goalie
Completed May 2025

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

The Grammaton Cleric [Class Warfare: Assassin]

LantisEscudoJune 22, 2025Iron Chef, LAMV, Videos

Speedy180’s Class Warfare event issued the challenge to editors to edit a video showcasing one a character or set of characters that exemplify one of the Fate/Stay Night hero classes (the original eight classes were available for this iteration of the event).

The timeframe for the event unfortunately coincided with the prep period for Anime Boston 2025, so I decided to put together a video in an Iron Chef style (about four hours of actual editing).

Equilibrium had come up in conversation in the same Discord server a few months before the event, so it was fresh in my mind when I went looking for an idea, and I knew that I wanted to use some sort of epic movie score style of audio track. I considered “O Fortuna” and “Duel of the Fates” before settling on “Liberi Fatali” as the audio track.

I debated whether to submit it as an Assassin video or a Berserker video, but ended up deciding to go with Assassin, partly because I knew that there were a lot more Berserker entries already.

It got several positive comments in the live streams of the event, and I think it’s pretty solid, especially as an Iron Chef project.

Video – Equilibrium
Audio – Nobuo Uematsu – Liberi Fatali (from Final Fantasy VIII)
Completed May 2025

YouTube Link

Anime Boston 2025 AMV Contest Opening

LantisEscudoJune 22, 2025Contest Opening, Videos

In keeping with my plan from 2024, a large percentage of the 2025 opening was able to be reused from the previous version. I did head back into the city and shot some new locations to use and build up the library of options for future years, and paired the new shots with new or appropriate anime shots – special thanks to my friend that told me about the characters Wizard Barristers visiting Boston in episode 7, including the shot of Alewife station I was able to directly match.

Working on the opening with an existing framework this way significantly reduced my additional workload in the runup to the convention while still providing something fairly original, so I’m going to continue doing it for future years.

Video – Various Anime, Live action footage of Boston
Audio – Dropkick Murphys – Shipping Up to Boston
Completed May 2025

YouTube Link

Please Drink Responsibly

LantisEscudoJune 22, 2025AMV, Videos

I had originally planned on only submitting one video to RICE 2025, but about a month before the deadline, Thomas Benjamin Wild, Esq. released a new album, which included a song that immediately sparked an idea that I decided to give a shot. But while I was scrubbing footage for it, I realized that I wouldn’t have enough time to edit it.

As a silver lining, though, I’d been listening to the rest of his albums while scrubbing, and this idea had gotten added to my list, and would be significantly easier to put together, so I pivoted with about three weeks to go before the deadline. And then I came down with pneumonia that put me in bed for more than a week, which was an absolutely miserable experience that I recommend anyone to avoid.

I did manage to get it together just before the deadline, and it did get a good amount of positive reactions from the other editors in RICE.

For such a silly idea, it worked better than I expected, and I had fun making it (once I got over being so sick).

Video – VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream
Audio – Thomas Benjamin Wild, Esq. – Pants Drunk
Completed February 2025

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

All In a Day’s Work

LantisEscudoJune 15, 2025LAMV, Videos

I made a trip to Japan in December 2024, and one of the places I made a point to visit was the Wakayama Electric Railway’s Kishigawa Line, and in particular Idakiso and Kishi Stations, where the famous stationmaster cats Niitama and Yontama were on duty.

In the gift shop, there were a pair of DVDs celebrating the first stationmaster cat, Tama, which I immediately picked up, thinking they’d be a fun source to use for a video.

My original thought was to use an instrumental version of “Sampo” from Totoro, since it had the striding quality that epitomizes how cats walk, but both versions of the song on the soundtrack had lyrics, so I went looking for other options. After trying a few other songs like the cat parts from “Peter and the Wolf,” I came back to the Totoro soundtrack to see if another track might work. Finding “Lets Go to the Hospital” was both satisfying and frustrating, since it was the instrumental version of “Sampo” I was looking for in the first place that I had overlooked because of the title.

In choosing footage, I decided to focus on just Tama, which made a large portion of the DVDs difficult to use, as I wanted to avoid using footage that included her two assistants, Miiko and Chibi.

The video got a good reaction in RICE 2025, and was nominated as a finalist in the Palate Cleanser category.

Video – Tama and the Tama Train; Super Station Master Tama: Riding the Strawberry Wind
Audio – Joe Hisaishi – Let’s Go to the Hospital
Completed January 2025

YouTube blocked the video due to the audio, but I can share it through Google Drive.